EUROPEAN countries should “peer pressure” their neighbours into taking on migrants who arrived in Greece and Italy, a leading Brussels bureaucrat has claimed.

A total of 11,966 refugees have been taken in by European Union countries from the two overburdened nations - despite states promising to share the about 160,000 new arrivals with migrant quotas almost 18 months ago.

And a European Commission progress report on the migrant crisis revealed almost 9,000 of those were relocated from the Greek Islands, where hundreds of thousands of migrants entered the continent last year, and only 3,200 from Italy.

He said: “If some believed you can have a sustainable migration policy by border controls, or countries of origins, they are misguided.”

Timmermans is facing a race against time to persuade nations to take in migrants – with the legally-binding scheme expiring this September.

Migrants Rescued in the Mediterranean

Tue, January 3, 2017

Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms rescue all 112 on aboard, including two pregnant women and five children, as it drifts out of control in the central Mediterranean Sea, some 36 nautical miles off the Libyan coast January 2, 2017

Migrants try to reach a rescue craft from their overcrowded raft, as lifeguards from the Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms rescue all 112 on aboard

If some believed you can have a sustainable migration policy by border controls, or countries of origins, they are misguided

Frans Timmermans, European Commission Vice President

He even urged countries to use “peer pressure” tactics to force neighbouring countries to stick to the “highly urgent” scheme.

But so far he has ruled out launching legal action against governments who have failed to meet their obligations.

He said the Commission's March progress report will be "the moment where I draw my conclusions on what next steps we could take."

GETTY

Timmermans said it was “highly urgent” for them to live up to their pledges

The tough-talking politician also declined to comment on a Hungarian government plan to change its asylum legislation, and insisted the Commission will “maintain international and EU standards in terms of protection of asylum-seekers.”